


Painting You Instead

by JudeAraya, t_hens



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of Anxiety, Sweet Fluff, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 17:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21431704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya, https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_hens/pseuds/t_hens
Summary: Dan's been feeling low, and Phil wants to help. They experiment with some art therapy.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65
Collections: Phanfiction Events Collab Fic





	Painting You Instead

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to our beta [fourthingsandawizard](http://fourthingsandawizard.tumblr.com)!

A small _thud_ woke Dan from his nap. He squinted around the bedroom, eyes still heavy with sleep. Phil wasn’t sitting beside him in bed like he had been when Dan had shut his eyes. Just a second, he had said. Now the evening light was streaming in through the windows. They had forgotten to close the blinds.

He checked his phone, surprised that it was nearing five in the evening. Almost a week of barely sleeping had left him exhausted and grumpy, but waking up after almost four hours of heavy sleep made him feel better than he had in weeks.

The noise that woke him sounded again from what he thought was the lounge, so he threw the covers back and made his way downstairs to find Phil. 

He did find him in the lounge, unwrapping a tarp and laying it on the floor. 

“You planning on murdering me?” He walked in and curled his body around Phil’s, who jumped and placed a hand over his heart. 

“Jesus, Dan, you scared the hell out of me!”

“Phil, you’re unwrapping a tarp in our lounge and _I_ scared _you_?” Dan chuckled. 

“I was trying to prepare a surprise for you. Did I wake you up when I bumped into the table?”

Dan hummed into the skin of Phil’s back, nodding.

“Sorry.”

“‘S okay. I needed to get up anyway. What’s this surprise?”

Phil turned and pulled Dan into his arms. “Why don’t you go make us some coffee? I’ll finish up.”

-

Twenty minutes and a full cup of coffee later, Phil was pulling him back into the lounge. Two canvases sat on the floor, surrounded by an assortment of paints.

“Painting?”

Phil nodded, a wide smile on his face. “I’ve been doing some reading, and the internet says that having a creative outlook helps with depression.”

God. Phil was so good. Sweet and thoughtful and just entirely too good for Dan. He pressed a long kiss to Phil’s lips, and was almost happy to stay there, but Phil pulled back and gestured towards the paint supplies. Dan took his seat on the floor and started picking out colors.

“What are we supposed to be painting?”

Phil shrugged, picking the brightest blue and yellow he could. “Whatever you want.”

Dan pondered for a bit. Phil started covering his whole canvas in blue. He watched for a few minutes, fascinated by Phil’s movements for no particular reason. Sometimes it was nice to sit and watch Phil’s creativity pour out of him. There was so much going on in his mind all the time, and Dan loved having some insight to that.

“I think I’m gonna do a beach scene?” Dan showed Phil the picture google brought up under ‘beginner painting ideas’ and Phil nodded.

“I’m doing a Charizard.”

Dan snorted and shook his head fondly. Of course he was.

-

They sat in relative silence for a while, both focusing on carefully drawing the lines and colors on their canvases. Dan didn’t even really hate his, it was turning out much better than he thought it would.

He glanced over to Phil’s, which was mostly a couple of big blobs of blues and greens, and saw Phil’s forehead scrunched up in concentration. It was really cute. Dan didn’t really think before leaning over and placing a dollop of yellow paint on the spot on Phil's forehead which was pinched the most.

“Wha’! Dan!”

Dan was too busy laughing at Phil, who reached up to wipe it away, smearing the paint over his eyebrow, to pay attention. Otherwise he would have seen Phil’s brush coming to leave a streak of paint on his cheek.

“Oi!” Dan reached up to wipe it away before thinking better. Judging from the wide yellow smear across Phil’s forehead, he’d make a bigger mess of himself. 

“All’s fair in love and war, Danny boy,” Phil said, tongue between his teeth, giggles like light spilling through the quiet. 

“Shut up.” Dan knew his smile gave away his affection, but it was _good_. Phil’s smile always brightened the room. In the ten years since the first time Dan had gotten to see that smile light up Phil’s face in real life to now, Dan had never tired of it. 

Painting was a good idea, too. Maybe he hadn’t realized how low he was feeling. Phil often saw it coming before he did, now, and his attempts to help Dan in these moments had varying degrees of success; sometimes Phil’s insights made him feel defensive. Intellectually, Dan understood that he was too in his head to be an objective observer. Emotionally, it was easy to slip into something akin to resentment. He hated the feeling that others might presume to know what he was going through - what depression felt like for him. 

Communicating this, working to find a balance between his desire for autonomy over his well being and mental health and Phil’s desire to support him as much as possible, was still a work in progress. 

But this? This was just right. This was Phil helping by _doing_. This felt like love as a verb. 

“Here,” Dan said. He pushed his painting gently out of the way before scooting toward Phil. He curled the hem of his worn sweater over his hand and used it to rub as much of the paint from Phil’s brow as he could. “You’ll still have to wash your face,” he said. 

Phil’s hands came up to circle his wrists, keeping Dan’s still where they framed his face. His eyes were a lovely cerulean and green. Dan wished, for a moment, that he had the skill to capture Phil, just like this. Quiet and bright and lovely and so _his_. 

“C’mere, you,” Phil whispered, pulling Dan into a soft kiss. Dan sighed into it, smiled out of it. 

Phil’s kissed the bridge of his nose and his forehead; light, barely there touches. Dan closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Phil’s. His fingers were chilly. Perhaps it was the moment, or the break in rain that had late afternoon sunlight spilling through the windows, hazing everything a lovely warm gold, that left Dan warm all the way through. 

“Thank you.” He knew he didn’t have to say what he was thanking him for. Phil knew.

“Any time,” he said. “This was good for me, too. I was feeling anxious. I guess I didn’t realize _how_ anxious I was.” 

“That’s good, then.” Dan opened his eyes and pulled away. He glanced down at Phil’s canvas again and bit his lip to try to hold laughter in. 

“What?” Phil asked. “Don’t laugh, I think it’s brilliant!”

“Uh huh,” Dan said, giving in to the laughter. 

“_Daaan_,” Phil whined. 

“Phil,” Dan managed, gasping a little, “it’s a lovely set of blobs, really, but haven’t you forgotten something?” 

Phil surveyed his canvas for a second. “What?” 

“That Charizard is _orange_, you spoon.” 

“Well, I wasn’t done yet!” Phil cried after a long pause.

“Of course.” Dan nodded, trying to school his expression into something serious. His fond smile always gave him away, but sometimes when he looked at Phil, he just couldn't keep it in. “I’m sure that was next on your mind, what with the way you’ve tried to paint a face onto that greenish blob, yeah?”

Phil frowned at the painting, then scooped a blob of orange paint, trying to shade in the still wet paint, leaving it a murky brown color.

“I think I ruined it,” he said, looking up morosely.

“‘S fine,” Dan told him, holding back a bout of laughter.

Phil waited till Dan’s eyes fell back onto his own painting before leaning over, brushing a wide steak of orange paint onto his cheek.

He sputtered and waved his hands at Phil. “You’re supposed to be painting the canvas, not me!”

One of Phil’s shoulders shrugged and he gave Dan a mischievous smile. “I don’t think there’s any saving it now. Might as well paint you instead.”

Dan’s eyes rolled at the cheesy line and he didn’t protest when Phil drew something small and circular on his jaw.

“What is it?” he asked quietly. Things suddenly seemed more serious. The frown of concentration was back on Phil’s face. Dan sat as still as he could.

“It’s a sun.”

There was a joke on the tip of Dan’s tongue, about how Phil was the sun, not him, but the paint actually felt nice, if not a little cold.

“Draw something else,” Dan said quietly, moving so he was sat in front of Phil, waiting patiently.

Phil bit his lip and tilted his head. “Close your eyes.” 

“Why?” Dan asked. “You’re not going to draw a giant cock on my forehead are you?” 

“Oh, course not,” Phil rolled his eyes. “I’ll leave that sort of behavior to you.” 

“Please, as if you wouldn’t,” Dan huffed. Phil shrugged, all wide eyed. Others read Phil as sweet, this sort of smile and the tilt of his shoulders as innocent. Dan knew mischief when he caught it out. 

“Well, okay, but this time I wasn’t going to!” 

Dan narrowed his eyes. Phil never could lie for shit, he wasn’t lying now. 

“Alright then.” Dan leaned forward. 

“Hold still for me, yeah?” Phil was dabbing a clean brush into some black paint. 

“I’m still not sure I trust you,” Dan said, then proved himself a liar by closing his eyes. He gasped and jerked at the first touch of the paintbrush against his neck. “Phi-il! Oh, my god, no!” 

Phil caught his hand just before he could scrub at the tingling skin. 

“Shit, it’s all over your shirt now, too,” Phil said. 

“Well of course it is, you’re painting my fucking neck right_ by_ my shirt,” Dan said, frowning even through laughter. 

“Neck rules don’t apply to me, remember?”

“They do when you’re sneak attacking with paint!” 

“Oh, stop being a baby and get over here,” Phil demanded. “It’s not a sneak attack anymore, so hold yourself still.” 

“Bossy,” Dan said, pretending, as he always did, that Phil ordering him around didn’t do _things_ for him. If Phil wanted to make a game of this Dan was more than willing.. “Alright. But I’m taking my shirt off before you get any more paint on it.” 

“Of course you are,” Phil said, lips quirked. Dan wanted to bite at it, then lick the sting away. The drying paint on his face and neck felt funny, pulling at his skin. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but being painted was definitely the preferred sensation. Dan always was greedy when it came to the way Phil made him feel. 

Moments passed slowly, the calm tangible in the air. Dan’s eyes had fallen closed once he finally let himself relax and give the reins over to Phil. He didn’t say anything the entire time Phil slowly brushed paint on to the goose pimpled flesh of his neck. 

“You doing okay?” Phil asked, still painting.

Dan gave a contented hum in response, enjoying the sensation of Phil’s hand on his thigh, steadying him, and the hand still holding the brush. A few strokes later and Dan could feel Phil pull away from where he’d been hunched over Dan.

“There, all finished.”

Slowly opening his eyes, Dan grabbed his phone and opened the camera to front view so he could take a look at what Phil had drawn.

It took a few seconds of looking until he realized it Manchester. There was the Manchester Wheel and a clumsy attempt at the Starbucks logo. Dan could feel a lump forming in his throat at the time and effort that Phil had put into painting such an important place to them.

“Do you like it?” Phil’s voice didn’t usually have that nervous tint that it did now, so Dan didn’t shy away from pressing an insistent kiss to Phil’s lips.

“I love it.” He paused for a moment, reaching up to cup the sharp edge of Phil’s jaw. “And I love you.”

Phil’s answering smile was brilliant and Dan thought about kissing him again, so he did.

—-

**Author's Note:**

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